Bakerella does some amazing things with a little bit of flour, sugar and some lollie sticks. But this project takes the cake.

It goes on, as you can imagine…

But, here’s the beauty part:

And, stop right there. That’s it – that’s where I start to tear up.

***

Find out what prompted all of this and more, over at Bakerella. If you have feelings, the story will touch your heart like crazy. I tear up a bit every time I read it. I have never met these people, and I tear up a bit. You want to make fun of me? Go ahead. I may be ridiculous, but at least I have copious amounts of feelings that cannot be contained.

Hey everybody, hope the holidays are treating you well this year. With Christmas days away, unless you have car (not the case for a city-dweller like me), I’m not so sure you’ll be able to grab these gifts in time. But here’s the thing, and let’s be honest with ourselves… we’ll probably just want to get these goodies for our own personal use. Am I right or am I right? And I wouldn’t give myself a hard time if I got myself a belated gift. Would you?

Most of these gifts I caught wind of either through friends, family, People, or the good ol’ boob tube. I found the following items to be my absolute faves, and I think you’ll like them, too. If you’d like to get your hands on any of these products, the links to where you can find them immediately follow each image. Hurry though; each of these items is still in stock presently, but of course there’s no way I can promise they’ll still be available in the minutes after I post this!

There are lots of reasons why the holidays are one of my favorite times of the year, but ranking high among them are the following two:

~ dreamy and delightful holiday decor

~ pretty packaging perfection by incredibly creative crafters

Combine those two with my absolute favorite thing in general and of all time – photography – and you get marvelous, breathtakingly beautiful things… wondrous things that never cease to amaze me, no matter how many times or however long I stare at them. Here are several examples of that magic, created by some of the greatest triple threats around. Click on the links announcing each set to visit each artist’s space on the web (Flickr pages or personal weblogs).

Want to make a serious impact this holiday season, but feel your typical treats just aren’t cutting it this year? Or maybe you kinda sorta forgot to buy gifts for your family and friends, and it’s December 22 already. Whoa, came outta nowhere, right?!

Okay, no worries, everything’s fine. Bakerella has some major league ideas that are sure to drop jaws…

Show up on the scene holding a sweet lookin’ batch of any of the uber-creative confections below – all courtesy of the magnificent Bakerella – and you’ll finally be able to throw away your copy of “How to Win Friends and Influence People.”

It’s through their eyes and their stomachs, my friends. Their eyes and their stomachs.

Of course, it doesn’t stop there. Bakerella has tons of ideas and recipes, and some seriously phenomenal photography to go along with it. I especially love the shots that depict the initial steps of her baking process:

Okay… so I’m going to leave you with that for the time being, as I go bake something immediately, because I’ve just thoroughly enticed and tortured myself and unfortunately there’s no turning back… Talk soon!

But, unless we’re sending our packages via email – aka not sending real gifts to people in real life, a serious holiday-fail – we’ll just have to settle for a little human error in our gift wrapping efforts. Fortunately, there are gift wrapping papers as fun and spirited as these bright beauties from Design Army, which make even the worst wrap-job totally forgivable. This bundle is called the “Do-Re-Mi” Wrapping Paper collection, and you can get it here.

Rudolph:

Frosty:

Jingle Bells:

12 Days of Xmas:

(You get two sheets of all four designs)

My favorites? The “12 Days of Xmas” is quite nice, and I really get a kick out of another design, called “To/From” Wrapping Paper, which saves you an obvious step in the gift-wrapping process:

Cute idea, no? If you think so, you might want to hurry up – you don’t have much time left!

Leslie’s Color Me Pretty posts on her blog, decor8, make me feel all warm and festive inside. Just look at the sweet, sweet goodness of these projects she created and photographed so brilliantly. Go Leslie, with your bad self! I love how you rock that hyper-creativity that so obviously flows through you in immeasurable quantities. Did you know that red, white and kraft paper brown are, as a matter of fact, my favorite holiday colors?

Leslie’s loveliness inspired me to gather up my favorite manifestations of that oh-so-special color triumvirate. My heart actually beats faster when I look at these other bits ‘n’ pieces of holiday inspiration. Totally serious. I hope you enjoy them as much as I have!

Yesterday, I received a package. I was promised it would arrive several days ago, but, as you can easily infer, it didn’t. I’m not so much a stickler for timeliness as I am someone who appreciates keeping your word if you’ve promised something. So, it shouldn’t surprise any of you that I wasn’t too thrilled about the late arrival.

But guess what?

When I opened it up, it revealed THE MOST PRECIOUS packaging efforts I had ever seen in my life.

The package came late? Oh. I had forgotten as I stared lovingly at the pink tissue paper and brown Kraft confetti. Lateness? Completely forgiven.

***

Clearly, the right packaging can make quite a splash with your recipient. Honestly, I don’t know what I would have done with myself, had that item arrived on time. Great packaging and timeliness might have made me fly out there and thank her myself.

So, in case you were looking for the perfect way to package your gifts this holiday season, I think I might have just the thing.

Have you seen these lovely paper goods from Martha Stewart Crafts? I just love all of the packaging materials she offers. Below are a bunch of my favorites. They are divine for packing up some fresh, homemade (or store-bought like the rest of us) cookies, or a bunch of your favorite chocolates. … Or any other little bits of love you’d like to share with someone. She also has absolutely darling flair for you to pretty up your basic package. Crafty or not, you can do this!

~ ~ ~

QUICK NOTE: Tomorrow, I’ll be sharing with you some of the best wedding crafts and deals floating around in this here ether we call the ‘net. Do you know the only thing that upsets me about all these goodies and DIY projects? That I can’t have 17 separate weddings, just so I can use it all and do it all.

~ ~ ~

Oh, did I mention a lot of these items below are on sale right now?

***

.

.

.

.

Say you’re all set with your basic packaging. How about some wonderful ways to jazz it up?

I SO love those rose stickers. How cute, right? :) Ok, now on to the holiday appropriate ones…